hieratic : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: hieratic	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for hieratic
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
hieratic adj associated with the priesthood or priests; "priestly (or sacerdotal) vestments"; "hieratic gestures" Synonym(s): priestly, hieratic, hieratical, sacerdotal written or belonging to a cursive form of ancient Egyptian writing; "hieratic Egyptian script" adhering to fixed types or methods; highly restrained and formal; "the more hieratic sculptures leave the viewer curiously unmoved" n a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics; used especially by the priests Synonym(s): hieratic, hieratic script
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Hieratic \Hi`erat"ic\, a. [L. hieraticus, Gr. [?]; akin to "iero`s sacred: cf. F. hi[82]ratique.] Consecrated to sacred uses; sacerdotal; pertaining to priests. {Hieratic* character}, a mode of ancient Egyptian writing; a modified form of hieroglyphics, tending toward a cursive hand and formerly supposed to be the sacerdotal character, as the demotic was supposed to be that of the people. It was a false notion of the Greeks that of the three kinds of writing used by the Egyptians, two -- for that reason called hieroglyphic and hieratic -- were employed only for sacred, while the third, the demotic, was employed for secular, purposes. No such distinction is discoverable on the more ancient Egyptian monuments; bur we retain the old names founded on misapprehension. --W. H. Ward (Johnson's Cyc.).